New Transparent Display Developed at MIT Could Be Applied as Thin Plastic Coating on Windows
Posted on January 21, 2014
A new transparent display developed by MIT researchers could be applied as a thin plastic coating on windows. The technology could enable store windows to display moving images while still enabling shoppers to see the merchandise inside. BBC News says cheap "stick-on screens" could be developed using the technology. The new technology is described in a paper published in Nature Communications. The paper is co-authored by MIT professors Marin Soljacic and John Joannopoulos, graduate student Chia Wei Hsu, and four others.
To create the system, nanoparticles are embedded in the transparent material. The particles are tuned to scatter only certain wavelengths (or colors) of light and let all other wavelengths through. MIT provided this video example that shows a projected blue image on a transparent screen. Silver nanoparticles about 60 nanometers across were used to produce the blue image. Take a look:
The researchers say it should be possible to develop full-color display images using their technique. The researchers say, "Three colors (red, green, and blue) are enough to produce what we perceive as full-color, and each of the three colors would still show only a very narrow spectral band, allowing all other hues to pass through freely."
Soljacic says, "The glass will look almost perfectly transparent, because most light is not of that precise wavelength that the nanoparticles are designed to scatter. That scattering allows the projected image to be seen in much the same way that smoke in the air can reveal the presence of a laser beam passing through it."